CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosbluetoothbluetooth-lowenergyibeacon
John M.
John M.

Reputation: 2712

Is iBeacon proprietary?

If my understanding is correct, the first 9 bytes of the payload of an advertisement packet for iBeacons is the iBeacon prefix. Bytes 6-7 is the company identifier code, and for iBeacon advertisement packets, it is 4C 00 (== Apple).

Since the iBeacon packets are "signed" by Apple, is the protocol proprietary? If it was open, the advertisements shouldn't be bound to Apple - right?

If it was proprietary, could the iBeacon packet structure be manipulated?

Thanks

Upvotes: 3

Views: 317

Answers (1)

davidgyoung
davidgyoung

Reputation: 64916

Yes, Apple considers the iBeacon standard proprietary. They have a certification program for putting the logo on manufacturers approved to make devices meeting the standard. As the lead developer on the Android Beacon Library, I have to go to great lengths to keep the proprietary beacon format out of the source code so as to not to pollute a project covered by the Apache 2 license with intellectual property.

Because Bluetooth beacon transmissions are a simple byte sequence, they are trivial to decode and manipulate. But because it is easy to do something does not necessarily mean it is allowed in all jurisdictions.

What is and is not allowed by is up to the interpretation of lawyers and the judiciary. It is beyond my expertise and beyond the scope of this forum.

Upvotes: 5

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